Anticlericalism

anticlericalism, in Roman Catholicism, opposition to the clergy for its real or alleged influence in political and social affairs, for its doctrinairism, for its privileges or property, or for any other reason. Although the term has been used in Europe since the 12th and 13th centuries, it is associated in more recent history with the French Revolution and its aftermath.

Three principal forms can be identified. The first, developed during the 18th century, was based on opposition to clerical privilege, often corrupt, as established by feudalism. The second is associated with the rise of liberalism, which in general accused the clergy of servility to the monarchy or of ignorance in terms of scientific thought. The third, endorsed by some totalitarian systems, considered clerics to be chronically opposed to the “race,” the “nation,” or some other presumed ideology.

In the 18th century such skeptics as Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists chafed under royal censorship and the clergy’s influence on the monarchy. The culmination of such anticlericalism was the French Revolutionaries’ assault on the Roman Catholic church, abolishing its privileges and confiscating property. In 1801Napoleon Bonaparte ended the Revolution, signed a concordat with the papacy, and “established” the church as a religious agency supported by and subservient to the French state. With modifications, this system lasted for a century, during monarchist, republican, and Bonapartist regimes.

The creation of the Third Republic in 1871, however, intensified the old-time conflict between clericals and anticlericals. In the struggle between 1871 and 1879, royalist-clerical parties opposed republican-anticlerical parties. Léon Gambetta phrased the slogan, le cléricalisme, voilà l’ennemi (“clericalism is the enemy”). The victorious republicans enacted a good deal of anticlerical legislation. The Jesuits were suppressed (1880); and the Ferry laws (1881–82) established free, secular education, compulsory civil marriage, and the opportunity for divorce. The second conflict took place as a result of the bid of Georges Boulanger for dictatorial powers, and ended with a republican, anticlerical triumph. The third took place during the Alfred Dreyfus affair (1894–1906), when an anticlerical republican bloc was formed, consisting of all republican groups in the Chamber of Deputies, determined to oust royalists, militarists, and clericals from public life. Further anticlerical legislation resulted. The Law of Associations (1901) suppressed nearly all of the religious orders in France and confiscated their property, and the separation law (1905) sundered church and state.

Spreading from France, anticlerical ideas and methods were adopted, in varying ways, in other Latin countries. In Italy anticlericalism was fused with nationalism and liberalism. Pope Pius IX, defending his position as temporal ruler of the Papal States, opposed Italian unity. When Camillo Cavour embarked on his career as architect of a united Italy, he put through the Piedmontese Parliament a series of anticlerical laws, abolishing the civil jurisdiction of canonical courts and suppressing many monasteries. Cavour’s slogan, “a free church in a free state,” was adopted by the anticlerical liberals of Italy.

After the unification of Italy, the struggle between clericals and anticlericals continued. When Rome became the capital, the temporal power of the popes was ended. Anticlerical legislation decreased the number of monastic establishments, suppressed university theological faculties, and sanctioned civil marriage. But no divorce law was enacted, nor was religious instruction banned from the schools. The Law of Guarantees accorded the pope full power to exercise his spiritual function. Pius IX did not, however, recognize the Italian government and in 1874 forbade Catholics to participate in political activities. This caveat was not ended until 1919. The advent to power of Benito Mussolini in 1922 for a time intensified anticlericalism, since Fascism claimed absolute control by the state. Yet no serious conflict occurred, despite continuing papal opposition to some curtailments of religious liberty. In 1929 the Lateran Treaty was signed, ending the dispute over the temporal power by making the pope ruler of the small state of Vatican City.

The Napoleonic invasion (1808) started an anticlerical movement in Spain. The Constitution of 1812 abolished the Inquisition and restricted the number of religious orders but recognized Catholicism as the established church. This constitution was in turn abrogated when Ferdinand VII was restored to the throne in 1814. Anticlericals reacted bitterly, and from that time until 1939 the struggle between the right and left in Spain was far more a conflict between clericals and anticlericals than elsewhere in Latin Europe. The conflict became especially intense after 1870. Barcelona, traditionally a centre of anti-Catholic feeling, witnessed the formation of powerful syndicalist and anarchist groups. The first Spanish Republic (1873) enacted some anticlerical laws, but these were repealed or disregarded when the monarchy was restored in 1875. During an anticlerical outbreak in 1909, mobs burned churches and attacked priests. As a pacification measure, religious orders were restricted in number and taxes were levied on their industrial enterprises. Civil marriage was made compulsory. The revolution of 1931 that established the Second Republic brought to power an anticlerical government. The legislation adopted resembled that of France. The government was, however, unable to curb mob attacks on churches and monasteries, during which priests and nuns were slain. Catholics mustered their forces in opposition. Counterrevolutionaries led by General Francisco Franco declared war on the republic, and the Falangist dictatorship that was subsequently established repealed or ignored the anticlerical laws, though conflict between church and state did not cease, even after the death of Franco in 1975.

Anticlerical tendencies varied considerably from country to country in Latin America after it had achieved independence from Spain and Portugal. Although Colombia, for example, witnessed the enactment of anticlerical legislation and its enforcement during more than three decades (1849–84), it soon restored “full liberty and independence from the civil power” to the Roman Catholic church (1888). In Venezuela, on the other hand, the government of Antonio Guzmán Blanco (1870–88) virtually crushed the institutional life of the church, even attempting to legalize the marriage of priests. Some of the restrictions were later relaxed, but on the whole anticlericalism remained dominant. A strong outburst of anticlerical resentment occurred in Mexico in the period from 1924 to 1938, when suppressive anticlerical legislation accompanied social reforms. Anticlerical legislation remained on the statute books in subsequent decades, but the Roman Catholic clergy could work more freely than before.

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